


Say Cheese

by lamardeuse



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-22
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why don't you go back where you belong and let me get on with missing you, huh?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Cheese

**Author's Note:**

> Written for due South Flashfiction on Livejournal (icon challenge).

_October 13th, 1999_

Dear Ben:

You’re right, these letters are a much more pleasant way to communicate than e-mail.  I have several friends who assured me that they would keep in touch more often with e-mail, and I never hear from them any more.  Sometimes the old ways are the best, aren’t they?  It’s homey to sit in a cabin by a roaring fire and feel the scratch of your pen on the paper, rather than peck away in front of a harshly glowing screen.

I appreciate the gift of your pemmican recipe.  My mother used a slightly different technique, but I’ll try your method the next time Eddie goes hunting.  He always brings me about twenty pounds, and I prepare some for him, and some for myself.

I understood from your last letter that you were curious about Eddie, but didn’t want to ask (don’t look so shocked; you’ve read my own intentions often enough).  Eddie is a friend, though I know he wants it to be more.  I like him a great deal; he’s the best doctor this area has ever seen, and everyone in town loves him to distraction.  However, I’m a little cautious about dating him, and not just for the obvious reasons.  I’ve built a position of trust in this town, but if I begin a relationship with the most eligible Innuit man within a forty-kilometer radius, I’m risking creating tensions that could jeopardize my position here.  It’s not a decision I can take lightly, either personally or professionally.

Why can’t anything ever be simple, Ben?  But don’t worry, I’ll sort it out eventually.

On that note, thank you for the lovely photo of you and Ray that you sent with your last letter.  I’m glad to see the two of you so obviously happy; I have to admit, when you came to visit me this summer after your “adventure,” I came close to offering the two of you my room, but I didn’t want to embarrass you.  You didn’t say anything about it, which is fair, since you couldn’t know how—ah, open-minded—your newly found sister would be about such things.  But I want you both to know that I’m fully supportive of your relationship, and wish you all the happiness in the world.  I think you and I understand better than some how hard it is to find that perfect connection, and to keep it once it’s found.  I hope you’ll hold on to this as tight as you can, Benton, because no one deserves it more richly than you do.

Love,  
Maggie

“Hey, is that Maggie’s latest letter?”

Fraser started at the sound of Ray’s voice.  Looking up, he saw the other man walking down the Consulate hall, his long strides closing the distance between them effortlessly.  Hastily, he attempted to fold the note paper, but only succeeded in dropping it.

“Ray!  I wasn’t—ah—expecting you so soon,” he stammered, bending over to pick up the letter.

Ray stopped a few feet in front of him and cocked his head.  “What’s wrong?  Bad news?”

“Ah—that is—no.”  Dear Lord, Ray had read every letter Maggie had sent the last few months.  How could he keep him from reading this one?

Ray held his left hand palm out.  “Hand it over, then.”

“Ah—” Fraser held the paper to his chest like a child clutching his favourite teddy bear.  Where was a convenient fire when you needed one?  “I, ah, that is, I mean to say—”

Ray nodded at him patiently.  “It’s personal,” he said, head still bobbing.

“Yes,” Fraser breathed, an immense feeling of relief washing through him.

“Jeez, Frase, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Ray demanded, waving a hand.  “I don’t need to read any mushy brother-sister stuff.  I just want to know how she’s doin’.”

“She’s quite well,” Fraser replied, stuffing the letter into a pocket before he could manage to drop it again.  He latched onto the first safe topic he could remember.  “She—there’s a doctor up there who’s interested in her.”

Ray’s gaze flicked to his face, then away.  “Yeah?  What’s his name?”

“Eddie,” Fraser answered, wondering why that was relevant.

“Eddie?  Doctor Eddie?  What the hell kinda name is that for a doctor?”

Fraser frowned.  Apparently this topic wasn’t as safe as he had assumed.  These days, he could never predict what would set the other man off.  “I suppose—” he began, but Ray waved him to silence.

“Never mind, never mind,” he snapped.  “He just—better be good to her,” he added fiercely.

“I didn’t know you still had—feelings for her,” Fraser managed, his throat suddenly gone tight.

Ray hitched his shoulders and rocked on his heels.  “Course I still got feelings for her,” he bristled.  “Why wouldn’t I?”

Fraser ignored the strange churning sensation in his stomach.  “I don’t know, Ray.” 

Ray stared at him for a few tense moments, then jerked his head in the direction of the door.  “You ready to roll?” he demanded. 

Fraser nodded.  “After you.”

  


    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

 

“Why did you think Ray and I were—together?”

“Ben?  Is that you?”  Maggie’s voice was heavy with sleep. 

Fraser looked at the clock.  It was only ten p.m. Maggie’s time.  “I’m sorry—did I wake you?”

“It’s all right.  I’ve been on night shifts the last few days.”  There was a soft rustling sound.  “What did you ask me?”

Fraser clutched the receiver so tightly he thought it might crack.  “I—” he trailed off, suddenly feeling foolish. 

“You can tell me,” Maggie prompted gently.

Fraser closed his eyes.  “Ray and I—we’re not together.  Not—ah—the way you think.”

There were a few seconds of silence.  “Oh.  I’m sorry, Ben, I didn’t mean to—”

“What made you think that?” Fraser blurted, aware he sounded childish.

Another pause, and then Maggie continued, her speech slow and hesitant.  “It wasn’t any one thing.  You just—you seemed so close this summer.  You seemed happier than I’d ever seen you, you smiled and laughed so much—I just—well, it occurred to me that if Ray were a woman, I’d deduce you were in love.  And then it struck me that, well, perhaps I was being too narrow in my thinking.”

Fraser scrubbed at his face with one hand.  “Do you think Ray noticed?”

“Do I think Ray noticed what?”

Fraser huffed out a breath.  “My—behaviour.”

“Your—Ben, I’m talking about the both of you.”

Fraser felt the floor drop out from under his feet.  “Wh-what?”

His sister’s voice was gentle.  “Both of you, Ben.”

“But that can’t be,” he said flatly.

“Do you remember the night before you left?  You told us you’d decided to decline that transfer to Fort McPherson.  I was called in to work, but when I came back I could tell the two of you had fought.  Ray stomped outside—he’s quite good at stomping—”

Fraser snorted in spite of himself.

“—and I went out to talk with him.  Do you know what he said to me?”

“No,” breathed Fraser.

“He said that he couldn’t understand why you weren’t staying, when it was clear you loved the North so much.  At the time I—assumed—well, you know what I assumed—and I told him that you must love something in Chicago more deeply.  He looked at me with such pain, Ben, and he told me, ‘Whatever it is, it isn’t worth it.’”

“Dear Lord,” Fraser murmured.  Suddenly, everything that had happened the past few months slammed into focus—Ray’s withdrawal from him since their return to the States, his increasingly frequent bad moods. 

“When I saw the photo, I assumed you’d resolved your problems, and that all was well,” Maggie was saying.

Fraser opened his nightstand drawer and took out his copy of the snapshot he’d sent Maggie.  It was taken last month because Maggie had asked for a picture of the two of them.  He remembered being surprised when Ray had pressed willingly against his side after Frannie exhorted them to “get closer,” and shocked when the picture had come back and Ray’s brilliant smile, the one he hadn’t seen since their adventure, had shone forth from the two-dimensional image.

“It was taken for you,” Fraser protested weakly, grasping at straws.

“Ben.”  Maggie’s voice turned to steel, reminding him so much of their father that he shivered.  “Tell him.  For God’s sake, don’t waste another day.”

  


    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

 

 

Ray’s eyes on Fraser were wary and shadowed.  His left hand held a half-empty beer bottle in a loose grip, but the rest of his body was tense, immobile in the doorway to his apartment. 

“May I come in?”

The eyes pinned him for another moment.  “Yeah, why the hell not?” he said resignedly, turning and walking away from the door without bothering to see if Fraser was following. 

“We need to talk.”

Ray chuckled sullenly as he flopped onto the couch.  “Four words no North American guy ever wants to hear strung together.”

Debating for a split second, Fraser decided to sit next to Ray.  The other man shifted slightly, but made no comment.  “So.  Talk.”

Taking a deep breath, Fraser pulled the photo from his jacket pocket and handed it to Ray.  “Worth a thousand words, huh?” Ray cracked, but his voice was not as cocksure as it should have been.

Silently, Fraser took out the letter and handed that to him as well.  Ray’s eyebrows shot up.  “So now I get to read it?”

“Yes,” Fraser breathed.

With a final glance at Fraser, Ray set his beer on the coffee table and shifted his attention to the piece of paper in his hands.  Fraser watched for the slightest change of expression on the other man’s face as he read.

But Ray’s face remained blank throughout, and when he was done, he took the paper and photo and handed them both back to Fraser. 

“Man,” Ray said, “has she swallowed too many Harlequins or what?”  But his eyes were everywhere but on Fraser, and blank expression or no, flip comments or not, Fraser was a detective, and he had his answer. 

It occurred to him that he could have had his answer months ago, if he hadn’t been such a bloody coward.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked softly.

“Tell you what,” muttered Ray.

Fraser reached out a hand to Ray’s face, but Ray flinched and shied away.  “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Fraser murmured.

Ray said nothing, merely shook his head vehemently like a recalcitrant child.

Fraser held the picture in front of Ray’s face.  “What were you thinking of when this picture was taken?”

Ray clenched his jaw, and Fraser’s confidence faltered.

“Were you thinking of Maggie?” he asked.

Ray opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.  “Yeah.”

Fraser’s heart turned to ice.  God, he was a fool, such a fool.  He gathered himself to rise from the couch, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him cold.  He looked up, and was immobilized by an intense blue gaze.

“I was thinking about the last time we saw her.  About the adventure.  About Franklin and his crazy hand.”  He paused, his breathing ragged.  “About the last time you were happy.”

“Ray, I—”

“Why don’t you go back?” Ray whispered, and it was a plea.  “Why don’t you go back where you belong and let me get on with missing you, huh?”

This time Ray didn’t pull away when Fraser reached up to stroke his cheek.  “Because I don’t want to get on with missing you.”

“Fuck,” Ray swore brokenly, and then they were kissing.

As Fraser hauled Ray into his arms, he thought that in his next letter, he’d have to thank Maggie for requesting that picture.  


**Author's Note:**

> First published February 2004.


End file.
